Canadian Anti-Choice Group Debuts Ads

Recently a media campaign mounted by a national anti-choice group used billboards, transit shelters, bus ads, radio ads, newspaper ads and postcards to denounce abortion with the tag line “Nine months: The length of time abortion is allowed in Canada. No medical reason needed?”These ads are offensive and due to public criticism have been pulled in at least one Canadian city.

According to the group LifeCanada, it means only to educate the public about the dangers of having no abortion legislation in Canada.On Monday January 28th, Canada will celebrate the 20th anniversary of the ground-breaking Morgentaler decision, which removed abortion from the Criminal Code.Since then Canada has had no legislation that restricts abortion; however, access to abortion services is still limited across the country.As the pro-choice movement comes together to remember this victory, and to discuss what work still needs to be done, the anti-choice side has decided that a more abrasive campaign was needed to make Canadians aware of how abortion is affecting the country.

The LifeCanada website, www.AbortionInCanada.ca, has been disguised as a “neutral” site aimed at helping women through crisis pregnancies.They even quote statistics by the pro-choice organization, the Guttmacher Institute.Once you start navigating through the site it becomes evident that the site is dedicated to propagating myths surrounding abortion. It even has a crisis line for pregnant women to call — but I am guessing that callers will not get the unbiased support of whoever is on the other end of the line.

There needs to be accountability in Canada when a group decides to disseminate inaccurate information about an issue as controversial as abortion.In Hamilton, Ontario, where the ads were pulled, the Mayor and Counsellor responsible for the move said that there had been very little feedback from the pro-choice community.This means that we need to take a moment and support actions such as these to ensure that our voices are heard.If we do not then an assumption will be made that in fact the public is sympathetic to these groups’ actions, and in the future similar ads may not be taken down.

I totally agree that there should be accountability in disseminating information on the internet. After looking over the site in question, I failed to find any so called inaccurate information. The organization which launched this site has used mostly information from Statistics Canada and pro-choice organizations.

Where is the inaccurate information?

eileen

First it should be noted that Canada is not the USA and quoting Guttmacher – which the site does frequently – does not apply to Canadian conditions.

The Canadian College of Physicians and Surgeons recommends against abortions past the 20 week stage and for this reason there is virtually no place in Canada where a therapeutic abortion could or would be carried out legally past that point. There will, of course, always be an infinitesimally small number of post 20 week abortions which are done on an emergency basis to preserve the health and life of the woman. Statistics Canada does not list any such abortions. In fact any current reference to gestational age at the time of the abortion they use is not gleaned from the sources they list since that information is no longer recorded in Canada.

The old anti-choice canard concerning Saline Amniocentesis as an abortion method is trotted out as if any were actually performed in this day and age and included with it is the reference to “burning” the fetus – with a saline solution barely strong enough to be an emetic and less salinated then the water in the dead sea, which is excellent for swimming having extra buoyancy.

The first test of any site dealing with abortion is to check whether they use the “abortion causes breast cancer” lie. This has been debunked so often that it is no longer a matter of them not understanding that “correlation is not causation”; or not knowing that there are at least six different forms of breast cancer – each with its own etiology, yet they don’t reference which type is supposedly caused by abortion. The only reason this lie continues to be a part of anti-choice propaganda is either their evil nature or stupidity (much like the claims they make for the reasons women have abortions).

Also listed as the health consequences of abortion are: infertility, associated with illegal and unsanitary abortions; saline poisoning – which was one of the reasons the saline amniocentesis method was abandoned in the 1980s; and of course the fictitious “PASS” [post abortion stress syndrome] which was invented shortly after Roe became law and will never be recognized as real until it can be shown that the nebulous symptoms are associated with, and only with, abortion.

To cap it all we must ask where the anti-choice propaganda industry would be without the ability to equivocate between the word “human” used as an adjective and ‘human’ used as a diminutive form of the compound “human being” which makes it a noun. Thus we see: “embryo refers to the developing human” and “fetus refers to the developing human” when in fact both refer to a part of the human(adj) gestational materials at different stages of development which is a semi-allogenic graft and part of the woman’s body.

The biggest lie of all on the site, of course, is the pretense that they are a neutral source of information when in fact they are obviously partisan anti-choice fanatics.

Eileen

invalid-0

I know many women who have had abortions and most of them are hurt by it. Don’t downplay people’s pain.

invalid-0

by women who were ambivalent about the abortion and now feel guilty have been put to good use by pro life lawmakers who use “policy by anecdote” to propose anti abortion laws. The website http://www.imnotsorry.net is countering this trend.

invalid-0

Perhaps people who are not in support of abortion should be referred to as PRO-LIFE instead of anti choice. Does the Life Canada group not have the right to protest against abortion the same as the you, being obviously of the PRO-CHOICE group have the right to lobby in the support of abortion?

As a Canadian, I must say that I certainly do not celebtrate the 20 year anniversary of abortion being removed from the criminal code.

As far as the signs are concerned, you mentioned that they are part of a “more abrasive” campaign. However, the sings tell people that an abortion is allowed at all trimesters of a pregnancy. How is it that this campaign is considered to be offensive if it is in fact true that abortions are allowed at 9 months simply because that a women chooses to? Is this not essentially reinforcing what the pro-choice group wants and celebrates?

invalid-0

It’s very sad that posting a question to a fact is considered “offensive”. Aren’t we a nation of thinkers? Don’t we have the capacity to deal with the facts? Why then is it considered offensive to reveal truth? The only reason it’s offensive is that it causes people to think about something they would rather dismiss. The truth isn’t something we want to face up to. We’re funny that way. However, acknowledging the truth is the only way to get beyond ourselves and deal with reality. The really sad truth is that there are a lot of very loud voices demanding we censor the facts. They seem to cry, “I’ve already made up my mind – don’t confuse me with the facts!”

amanda-marcotte

We'd have to ban marriage and childbirth, too.

invalid-0

The fact that the Canadian College of Physicians and Surgeons recommends against abortions after 20 weeks does not mean that abortion is illegal after 20 weeks. That’s not even an argument against the pro-life ads! It is pro-aborts like you who are misleading the public.

And if Statscan no longer collects data on the gestational age of the fetus, how do you know that no 20 week old fetuses aren’t aborted? Recommendations are very different from enforced laws.

Moreover, if I were to say that rape was a legitimate choice for a man to make on a date, would I be neutral on the issue of rape? When pro-abortion groups say killing an unborn child in the womb – something science not religion, says is a human life, then pro-abortion groups are not “neutral” either. Again, a common pro-abortion lie exposed!

Any organism that reproduces sexually begins life when the male gamete, the sperm, meets the female gamete, the egg. No religious text tells us that – science does. When you deny this simple scientific fact, it is only because of your political myopia, which is typical of pro-abort arguments.

harry834

"killing an unborn child in the womb"

if abortion is murder, than should the woman get the penalty for murder, ie life in prison?

Also if the fertilized egg is a person, then when it washes out 2/3 of the time in a woman's monthly cycle, should we inspect the tampon to verify if the substance is a fertilized egg or not? After all when a natural disaster happens and we're not sure if bodies are alive or dead, we are obligated to verify. If the fertilized egg is a person, we are obligated to inspect every woman's tampon to see if it ejected a fertilized egg, to verify the "person's body". If it is/was a fertilized egg, then our next obligation is to bury the tampon with a funeral ceremony, as we would when a body is found in the escavation after a natura disaster.

We can't control the weather, and we can't control a period, but we are responsible to help or bury the victims properly.

eileen

**Perhaps people who are not in support of abortion should be referred to as PRO-LIFE instead of anti choice. **

A pregnant woman has two choices with respect to her pregnancy. She can continue the process or terminate it. If you remove one of those choices then she is left with no choice. Anti-choice is an appropriate and accurate appellation for those who wish to eliminate abortion as a choice. Furthermore there are people in both camps who hold a 'pro-life' position and it is the same in both camps ie. they support a woman's right to give birth so "pro-life" does not properly identify the anti-choice position.

**As far as the signs are concerned, you mentioned that they are part of a "more abrasive" campaign. However, the sings tell people that an abortion is allowed at all trimesters of a pregnancy. How is it that this campaign is considered to be offensive if it is in fact true that abortions are allowed at 9 months simply because that a women chooses to? **

This is the constant lie spread on both sides of the border and I suspect our Northern neighbors have picked up the whine about phantom "late term" (which medically speaking means 26 weeks or more) without EVER actually referring to a single documented case of an abortion performed at that time in the pregnancy process that was not performed on an emergency basis to preserve the woman's life or because of severe fetal anomaly inconsistent with best medical practice (which would be to reduced pain).So here's a challenge for you. Provide us with a DOCUMENTED case of a third term abortion that does not meet the above criteria and was not prosecuted by law enforcement, either North or South of the 49th parallel. I've made this challenge for several years but have yet to have anybody actually provide documentation to support the claim. We don't need legislation against eating chocolate until you explode, because that doesn't happen. Just like the Phantom Procedure called PBA (http://eileen.undonet.com/Phantom.html) *"the abortions [that]are allowed at 9 months simply because that a women chooses to?"* do not exist and therefore does not require legislation. Furthermore to make the claim that women are such callous and shallow and evil creatures that they would carry a pregnancy beyond 6 months just to carelessly terminate it, displays a misogynist view of the gender that does not even merit acknowledgment.

Eileen

eileen

When people who oppose abortion use the term "pro abort" to describe people who support choice they are engaging in an ad-personam game.

Because `pro' means `for'. When you are described as `pro' something, it generally means that you think it's an intrinsically good thing, something we should have more of. If we actually felt this way about abortion, we'd encourage women to stop using contraception so that they could all experience the joys of this wonderful medical procedure, and we'd encourage pregnant women who were gestating wanted pregnancies to have abortions instead.

We don't feel this way. Nobody I know of feels that abortion is such a wonderful thing that there should be more of it – we'd like to see less of it, and feel that way for many reasons. I don't know of a single pro-choicer who wouldn't be happy if every pregnant woman in the world decided that she had the emotional, financial, and general resources she needed to take care of a child, and that she could continue her pregnancy rather than abort. I don't know of a single pro-choicer who wouldn't be delighted with the thought of contraception miraculously becoming so reliable and so side effect free, and so easily administered in a timely fashion, that unwanted pregnancies completely ceased to happen and abortion, and the need to abort pregnancies, disappeared. Do these sound like the words of somebody that is 'pro' or 'anti' something?

My above post discusses legislation against chocolate. I trust you see your logic and rationale is the same with respect to late term abortions or in Canada after 20 weeks abortions. I'll bet Canadian Statistics also don't have statistics for the number of fairies at the bottom of your garden – but just like post 20 week abortions if you can prove the fairies are there they'll count them.

As to your second paragraph: the gravid human uterus biologically contains a number of live human gestational materials of which a fetus is a one all forming a semi-allogenic graft on the body of the woman. Children are born and therefore are not in a uterus -despite the anti-choice appeal to dictionaries to show the results of 35 years of work by the Anti Abortion Propaganda Industry. The fetus BTW is biologically not an organism yet since its life is not supported and sustained by its own organ (or do you think they have tiny scuba equipment and breathe through the umbilicus?)

I won't bother further arguing what is and what is not scientific fact since it is obvious you don't know what you're talking about.

Eileen

http://www.protravelnetwork.com/booktravel invalid-0

It confounds and angers me how pro-abortionists use rhetoric to downplay a tragic and senseless event–the death of a pre-born human being. The smokescreens they raise do not address the issue at hand: an innocent person is violently killed in the name of convenience. Fundamentally, it is nothing but selfishness…and savage selfishness, at that. Society’s problems should never be solved by the murder of innocent people! Because they cannot speak for themselves, we must speak up for the innocent–our young children should be protected, not attacked with violence! (Remember the lessons from history–when we don’t speak up for those who are “weak” or “marginalized”, their humanity is demeaned, their human rights compromised and their lives desposed of in the name of “choice” (think of the African-American lynchings, the Holocaust (Jews called “parasites”) and of course women themselves in the suffrage movement. This same issue today with the unborn).

Are we willing to look to science? Life begins at conception and at conception a new person has been formed with a DNA independent of his or her parents. Rhetoric of “choice” or “they’re not human yet” will never change this fact. (Science determines when life begins not your opinion, and sentience is not a determination of humanity). Babies have nerves, feel pain, have brain waves, and can perceive things at a very young age (well before 12 weeks). When they are cut apart or vacuumed out of the womb, they suffer incredibly!

Truth will win out…Too bad the mass media is on the wrong–i.e. immoral–side of this human rights issue and mostly unwilling to cover prolife news or events (and then publicize the prolife wingnut who says something crazy). The unborn is 100% human and though small, dependent on his/her mother, less developed and in a different environment, NONE of those differences from a born baby determine their “humanity”. As a tall man, am I more human than a 6th grader? Though more developed, is a 6th grader more human than a 2nd grader? When a senior is on medication for their heart (and dependent) are they less human than someone who isn’t? When a person is on the top of a mountain or deep beneath the sea diving, their humanity doesn’t change! No, none of these issues changes the fact of their humanity.

Quite obviously, money is the issue and politics the other. The abortion mills are highly profitable as MEN perform these operations and WOMEN are left with the physical and psychological carnage. Isn’t it time women are warned and children are protected? Human life is valuable (even pro-abortionist human life).

It is a sad day in Canada, which cannot claim to be a civilized nation when abortion on demand is law. Pro-lifers: indifference is complicity. Let’s work together to STOP ABORTION NOW! Pro-abortionists, it is so tempting to resort to the name-calling and emotionally charged slander that you all engage in (because that is the only route you can take when logic, science and truth are on the side of prolife), but nothing is to be gained from that. Truth wins, and the lies you propagate are being exposed and your case dismantled piece by piece (but not piece by piece in the sense of a tiny human’s limbs and organs).

Celebrate life. Stand up to the culture of death! Mr. Mortgentaler will go into the history books in years to come, not as a “hero” in Canada, but as the man who will join the likes of Stalin, Chairman Mao, Pol Pot, Idi Amin…one who led the slaughter of millions of innoncents.
Mourn Canada! Let’s work towards the end of this atrocity!

Brian de Vries

harry834

"Life begins at conception and at conception a new person has been formed"

if abortion is murder, than should the woman get the penalty for murder, ie life in prison?

Also if the fertilized egg is a person, then when it washes out 2/3 of the time in a woman's monthly cycle, should we inspect the tampon to verify if the substance is a fertilized egg or not? After all when a natural disaster happens and we're not sure if bodies are alive or dead, we are obligated to verify. If the fertilized egg is a person, we are obligated to inspect every woman's tampon to see if it ejected a fertilized egg, to verify the "person's body". If it is/was a fertilized egg, then our next obligation is to bury the tampon with a funeral ceremony, as we would when a body is found in the escavation after a natura disaster.

We can't control the weather, and we can't control a period, but we are responsible to help or bury the victims properly.

invalid-0

Eileen, you assert:

“embryo refers to the developing human” and “fetus refers to the developing human” when in fact both refer to a part of the human(adj) gestational materials at different stages of development which is a semi-allogenic graft and part of the woman’s body.”

This is clearly a stupid thing to say. For if it were true, we would have a female also being male in the case of a woman carrying a male child. Your assertion would be silly if it weren’t so barbaric.

Your propaganda ignores the scientific facts of the issue. A fetus is an entirely separate, self-directed entity from its mother from the moment of conception. This fact is only disputed by those, like Planned Parenthood, who have a vested financial interest in providing abortions and those who have been duped into believing them.

A question for all…

Should men have the right to choose to abort their babies? Surely they should have that right, if women do. If they don’t want to support a child, shouldn’t they be able to kill it?

Or is it the case that men in fact have a responsibility, just like women, to care for and nurture their children. Don’t we all want legislation to compel dead-beat dads to provide for their children? Why don’t we want legislation to prevent women from killing those same children?

Imagine your 5-year-old son asks you this question…”Mom, can I kill this?” What is your first question? Most thinking people would respond with something similar to “What is it?”

If it is a toad, go ahead and kill it. If it is your sister, then you may not kill it.

The real question in the abortion issue is “What is the unborn?”

If the unborn is not human, then no justification for abortion is needed.

If the unborn is a human being, then no justification for abortion is adequate.

Given that the unborn is undeniably a human being, we have no reason that is adequate to justify killing it.

eileen

This is clearly a stupid thing to say. For if it were true, we would have a female also being male in the case of a woman carrying a male child.

So a man who has had a female heart transplant is no longer a man by this reasoning. Reasoning is not your strong suit.

A fetus is an entirely separate, self-directed entity from its mother from the moment of conception.

If that were actually so then it could be removed from the reproductive graft and support itself by using its own organs as any multicellular organism would.

Should men have the right to choose to abort their babies? Surely they should have that right, if women do.

Poor man you’re so confused! Women may abort or terminate the biological process of pregnancy (not babies – you abort a process not a thing). Men do not currently get pregnant. Furthermore supporting children is a parental and societal obligation and by law is required from parents or by those who act in loco parentis. Biology – sociolegal / biological process – parental responsibility – You’re comparing apples and furniture.

If the unborn is not human, then no justification for abortion is needed.

And there we go again with the “human” adjective/noun equivocation.

The full contents of the gravid human uterus is human. That’s a biological fact because it all contains human (adj) genome. However no part of the contents meets the sociolegal category of “human being” (N). Once more you’ve confused biology and sociology/law. They are two different disciplines.

edit: BTW I did not say “embryo refers to the developing human”. The phrase was in italics in the post for a reason. I do not purposely fallaciously equivocate using the word “human”.

Eileen

invalid-0

You say…”So a man who has had a female heart transplant is no longer a man by this reasoning.”

Nope, you are wrong because you are confusing parts of persons (hearts) with whole persons (fetuses). It is your view that asserts that a female can have a penis…and two fully operational hearts and brains…etc.

No, you could not remove a fetus from its proper environment and expect it to survive…it is dependent upon its mother. Since when does that change anything? If I am dependent upon insulin for my survival, or maybe kidney dialysis, am I any less a human being? According to your so-called logic, I should lose my personhood if I am dependent upon someone else for my survival. If your child’s kidney’s shut down, do you choose dialysis, or do you dispatch your child because she is no longer a human being? (remember this is your view.)

You say…”Furthermore supporting children is a parental and societal obligation and by law is required from parents or by those who act in loco parentis.”

I agree. Thanks for your support of the pro-life position.

What is it about traveling 6 or 8 inches through the birth canal that magically transforms something that isn’t a human being into a human being? That must be quite the process, please explain how that works biologically.

Eileen, do you support animal rights?

invalid-0

I support animal rights ;)

invalid-0

The abortion mills are highly profitable as MEN perform these operations and WOMEN are left with the physical and psychological carnage.

Life begins at conception

Please prove, with facts, any one of these assertions:
1. Abortion clinics are highly profitable
2. All, or most, abortion providers are men
3. Abortion provides all women physical and psychological carnage
4. Life begins at conception

invalid-0

A significant portion of those who support abortion also support animal rights. Yet, there are no arguments put forth in support of animal rights that do not apply with equal or greater force to fetal rights.

One cannot be both in support of animal rights and abortion and remain intellectually credible.

harry834

Saving the animal doesn't require us to interject ourselves in a woman's decision about her body

invalid-0

If we want to save a cute little baby harp seal we are quite happy interjecting ourselves on the hunters’ decision about the baby harp seal. Also, the decision to abort doesn’t only affect the woman, it also affects her child (obviously), the child’s father etc…

ALL laws force a moral viewpoint on people.

Your statement is a total cop-out.

Don’t you think that as a free and compassionate country, we should be able to find room for both the mother and her child in our decisions?

harry834

None of the above examples require the person to surrender control of their own body. The seal hunter's own body is not being contested. In abortion dialogues, the woman's body is being contested.

You also said that the decision to abort will affect others, the husband, etc. But the same can be said of the individual's decision to exercise their rights to free speech, free assembly, what have you. Anything an individual does can affect others, but we still have protections for the individuals to do as they wish.

Determining the fate of one's own body is a human right, even if it is not explicitly stated in the consititution. Neither is there explicit statements for the right to buy materials from a store without moralists blocking your path. Neither an explicit statement on the right to use the Internet. Obviously citizens are not forbidden from doing that which the constitution explicitly says they are allowed to do. You can't write out every possibilitiy.

At the core of this issue is a woman's ability to go to the doctor and have access to all options to support her health and well-being. Hundreds of women over the world choose abortion (including pro-life women who never talk about it) because they can't afford the child. And forbidding the abortion is not going to change that woman's capabilities or desire. Women had abortions whether or not the law allowed it. The only difference is that without legal protections, the abortions sought were performed by doctors in back alleys. Women died in the thousands because of this policy and are still dying in the third world for these restrictions. And our federal policy forbids money if the local groups talk or referr abortion.

There is only one way to prevent abortions, and that's by preventing unwanted pregnancies, throgh methods that promote choice rather than take it away. Telling people to "say no to sex" is taking away choice. Consequntially, its failed.

Instead we provide access to birth control, emergency contraception, sex education appropriate for each age group, condoms, and the ability for people to ask questions from confidential counselors rather than judgmental authorities that will report them for speaking out.

Another myth that anti-choicers like to spread that since we have condoms and pills available, we should have stopped teen preg and idsaes completely. Aside from the fact that access is NOT assured for many people even in THIS country, no prevention measure, on ANY health issue promises to completely eradicate, in a silver bullet fashion. We have seat belts, but some don't wear them. We have cops and advertisements that say "buckle up". Does that erase all instances? No.

Same goes for drunk driving, eating healthy foods, exercise, and dentists teaching about flossing. Obviously these things don't guarentee perfect health in our popluation, but that is no reason to ban the practice of teaching and trying to reach. We don't ban seat belts and air bags simply because car accidents happen everyday.

95% of Americans have been having pre-marital sex since the 1940's. So whether the society condemns it not, its happening. You think its not? Are you sure? You think anyone would tell you? Would your closest friends even feel comfortable being honest with you?

You are right about one thing. That essentially all laws try to enforce some sort of morality. But we also know that laws don't always do the things we want them to, and we are responsible for the unintended as well as intended effects of a law. You didn't see the thousands of women who died from illegal abortion, when a legal one would have been, generally speaking, ten times safer than childbirth.

Of course, only the doctor can decide which is safer, given a particular individual patient. But this process of a doctor serving their patient will only work if third parties will stop injecting themselves into these deeply personal medical decisions. Many women are sad to have an abortion, but they did it because it was the best decision given their circumstances. They were not ready, willing, and able to have a child. Crying "adoption" is a false easy answer that ignores the struggle that goes beyond the nine-month endurance. No one but this woman should be making this decision. It's her life, her body, her struggle. No one can make that journey for her.

invalid-0

In your first sentence, you neglect a critical being…the child.

I am not the least bit interested in ‘controlling women’s bodies'; I am interested in protecting babies bodies and giving women the support that they need during a difficult time.

I agree that these are deep issues and not easy to think through, but that does not change the fact that there are two lives we are talking about; the woman and her child.

A woman’s responsibility to her child certainly trumps any ‘choice’ that she may make.

Should we kill toddlers that cause financial hardship?

If a woman wants to kill her 3-year old daughter, should we make it as easy and comfortable as possible for her to do so? After all, she might get hurt if she has to fire a gun.

I agree that we need to educate our kids (I’m a teacher). But ‘education’ in and of itself is not adequate…we must be concerned with the content of the education. Any society that excludes the defenseless from protection is barbaric.

‘95%’…you pulled that one out of the south end of a north-bound bull along with the ’10 times safer’ silliness.

The abortions that happened before abortion was legal happened in Doctor’s offices, not in some imaginary back alley.

No one should give a woman the false hope that aborting her baby will solve her problems.

harry834

"I am not the least bit interested in 'controlling women's bodies'; I am interested in protecting babies bodies and giving women the support that they need during a difficult time."

What if they don't want to be pregnant? Will you support them then? Or just treat them like children and tell them "you don't know what you want"?

No means no.

Women who seek abortions are looking to end their pregnancies, so there's no "false hope" in the equation. Some do regret it, but some also regret childbirth and marriage. Should those be banned too?

I also want to know if you see a difference between terminating a fertilized egg in early stages versus killing a infant outside the woman;s body. Do you really care about the microscopic life?

"A woman's responsibility to her child certainly trumps any 'choice' that she may make."

This seems to contradict your purported claim that you have no interest in controlling a woman's body. Even if I believe that you have no intention of controlling a woman's body, you clearly have an intention of taking away one of her choices, and if that weaken's a woman's autonomy over her own body, so be it.

And also, examples of killing 3-year olds and tolddlers are not comparable because they are no longer part of a woman's uterus. Moreover, the entity growing inside a woman is far less developed then either toddlers, just-born infants, or even permantly comotose patients. And of course, all three of those examples are people not using a woman's body for survival. Shouldn't a woman be the principal decider in whether or not her body is to be used as a vessel? Real support for a woman means supporting her autonomy to make the choice even if you don't like with it. If you insist that a woman be pregnant even if she doesn't want to be, you are forcing her, and THAT is not support.

Because we are responsible for our choices too. The government is responsible for choosing laws that take away the option of ending pregnancy. Pro-lifers are responsible for choosing to defend those laws. And these laws have frequently resulted in death for women in back alley abortions.

You can't claim to support women if you mandate that she be pregnant against her will.

The risk of abortion complications is minimal when the procedure is performed by a trained professional in a hygienic setting: Fewer than 1% of all U.S. abortion patients experience a major complication. The risk of death associated with abortion in the United States is less than 0.6 per 100,000 procedures, which is less than one-tenth as large as the risk associated with childbirth. (40) However, 68,000 women in countries where abortion is illegal die each year of abortion complications, and many times this number are injured by unsafe procedures. (5)

Check the last two sentences in Balancing the Public/Private Dichotomy of Abortion. Ms. Kissling is leader the the pro-choice Catholic group, Catholics for a Free Choice.

"The evaluation of these conditions should not be routine, nor should the facile and not-quite-accurate claim that pregnancy is always medically more dangerous than abortion be used as a fall-back excuse. Women deserve to have their health conditions medically evaluated by specialists who treat each case individually and have no prior bias for or against abortion."

But obviously there are times when abortion is safer, and the earlier abortion is performed in pregnancy, the safer it is. Women, at least in the monumental majority, are not yearning to wait and abort. They want to abort as early as possible. And I’d think you’d also prefer early abortion to late-term abortion. We all agree.

In short, women should have all options available to her when she sees her doctor. Her body, her choice, her fate – should be in her hands.